TVGN news : Netflix's The Witcher Casts Female Leads

Netflix's The Witcher Casts Female Leads

Ciri and Yennefer have officially been cast.

By Colin Stevens

It’s been revealed that Henry Cavill will be joined by Freya Allan and Anya Chalotra in the upcoming Netflix adaptation of The Witcher.

Per The Hollywood Reporter, Freya Allan will be portraying Ciri while Anya Chalotra has been cast as Yennefer. Allan is playing Mary in the upcoming UK War of the Worlds miniseries while Chalotra is featured in the new series Wanderlust alongside Toni Collette. Following the plot of the books by Andrzej Sapkowski, Ciri is the princess of Cintra and Geralt of Rivia’s adopted daughter while Yennefer is a sorceress who acts as her mother figure.

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It’s also been announced by Netflix that Alik Sakharov, known for his work on House of Cards and Game of Thrones, will be directing four episodes, while Alex Garcia Lopez and Charlotte Brändström will each direct two episodes.

Other actors announced for the show are Jodhi May as Queen Calanthe, Bjorn Hlynur Haraldsson as her husband Eist, Adam Levy as Mousesack, MyAnna Buring as Aretuza, Millie Brady as Princess Renfri and Mimi Ndiweni and Therica Wilson-Read as novice sorcerers. Daredevil and The Defenders producer Lauren Schmidt Hissrich will act as showrunner and will executive produce alongside Sakharov.

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In an interview with THR, Hissrich spoke about the casting process, saying “There were some people who I had in mind from the minute I started writing this character and then there were other characters — Ciri is the perfect example — that take a really exhaustive search. We ended up seeing over 200 young women from all over Europe and really saw a great group of girls, but then when we met Freya… I actually went to London to meet with her in person and we knew it right away.

“We’re looking for the best actors for these roles. Period. End of story,” said Hissrich. “It comes down to the best actor for the role. Henry’s obviously a big fan of the franchise. We met in early April and had a very general meeting. I then went off and met with hundreds of other candidates for Geralt and never really got Henry out of my mind. In casting Anya and Freya, the cool thing was we were open to anyone and both of them, to me, embody the spirits of the characters.”

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Hissrich also touched on influences that The Witcher video games may have on the now, saying she’s a huge fan of them, but is trying to steer away from the games as they “are the sole visual representation of these stories, and we need to create our own visual representation.”

For more on Netflix’s The Witcher, read about how Henry Cavill was cast as Geralt of Rivia after publicly stating his desire to do so. For more on this, read about how Hissrich said Cavill was her first meeting for the character, stating “He IS Geralt.”